


Dark enough to find myself

by distinctive_pineapples



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Chicago Med
Genre: Diverges after Chicago Med 1x01, Gen, Tommy Merlyn is Connor Rhodes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 22:51:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5433782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distinctive_pineapples/pseuds/distinctive_pineapples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vignettes in the life of Dr. Connor Rhodes, Trauma Fellow, as the past begins to break through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Home

**Author's Note:**

> This piece was partially written for an assignment, but it was developed from an idea that I've wanted to write ever since watching the first episode of Chicago Med. Apologies if it's a bit rough--it's been a few years since I've written fanfiction, and I've also been writing papers almost non-stop for the past week. I'm also working in two fandoms in which I haven't written before, but I tried my best with keeping the characterizations accurate.
> 
> My natural response to seeing two characters played by the same actor is to somehow craft them as two identities for the same person, so it was inevitable that I would try to tackle this trope with the dear, deceased Tommy Merlyn and Colin Donnell's newest character, Connor Rhodes. Considering that much of this was developed after the first episode of Chicago Med, I do not address Connor's family issues as shown in later episodes, partially because it would add another layer of difficulty to this characterization. So this piece is a bit of canon divergence from Chicago Med 1x01, with this first chapter taking place PRIOR to the start of the episode.
> 
> Special thanks to my dear friend Mari, who helped spark this idea and who had to suffer through a few weeks of me throwing heartbreaking plot details at her.

_“Open your eyes…”_

Connor Rhodes blinks awake, his lips arched into a frown as he turns the words over in his mind. They frequently sounded in his thoughts as he was on the brink of waking, as if someone was calling him out of unconsciousness, but Connor learned to write them off as products of a dream, as there was rarely anyone waiting for him in the waking world to call out.

This is one such day, where the only company Connor is entertaining in his new apartment are the packed boxes and luggage strewn across the room; even then, it’s a small crowd, due to how few possessions are actually within the boxes. It’s been a few days since he took up residence, but Connor doesn’t expect to unpack much beyond the essentials anytime soon. Everything else will follow once the apartment starts to feel like a home—whenever or _if_ that ever happens. It’s been too long—certainly not in recent memory—since Connor has actually felt the warmth of _home_ , whether in a place or with particular people, and it’s reached the point where it’s barely more than a concept to him.

As much as Connor would love to remain in bed and ponder the mysteries of feeling “at-home” (well, at least the first part), it wouldn’t be the most positive first impression for his first day of work.

 _Dr. Rhodes, Trauma Fellow_ —it has a nice ring to it, even if it’s a bit surreal. Despite his skills, there are times when Connor feels like nothing more than a child pretend-playing the role of doctor, swimming in a white coat much too large for him to properly fill. Perhaps that insecurity will pass with time, though.

Forcibly rolling himself out of bed, Connor stifles a yawn as he opens the blinds and gazes out over the city.

He has to admit, the longer he stares out at the Chicago skyline, the more he gains a semblance of _home_. The towering glass buildings strike a chord of familiarity, and Connor wonders if this view can give him a glimpse of Queen Consolidated.

The fantasy screeches to a halt at this misstep, and Connor furrows his brow. There was never a branch of Queen Consolidated in Chicago, nor did Palmer Tech move any offices to the city after purchasing QC, as far as Connor knew. So why would he expect to find such a building in this city…?

That was a question that would have to be saved for later. Dr. Rhodes has an L-train to catch.


	2. Birthdays

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter starts to acknowledge Connor's situation. It was also one of the first chapters I wrote, shortly after watching 1x01 of Chicago Med, which is why I decided to feature Jamie, the young patient from that episode.

Jamie’s 21st birthday is in a few days, and even though he hasn’t been a patient in their ER since his lung transplant, the Gaffney Chicago med team—specifically Dr. Charles—prepares a small celebration for him. He’s taken up residence in their emergency room so many times over the years that he’s become part of the family, and while Connor has only met Jamie once, the young man left an impression on him. He gladly helps Dr. Charles organize the little get-together, and Connor finds that he’s strangely adept at planning parties, even though he can’t recall the last time he organized one. 

It’s a quiet celebration, considering the hectic occupations of most attendees, but Jamie is clearly grateful and touched by the gesture. He is even more so when Dr. Charles hands him the complete _Fast & Furious_ Blu-ray collection that the medical team all pitched in to purchase. 

In the midst of receiving congratulations for having reached “the big 21,” Jamie turns the tables and asks the doctors how they spent _their_ 21st birthdays. 

The answers are varied. Dr. Charles tells of a roadside diner and a kiss from a girl he liked, while Dr. Choi’s day was filled with Navy applications. Likewise, Sarah’s quaint family dinner is a stark contrast to Maggie’s nightclub adventure. 

The conversation eventually turns to Connor, and he immediately finds the colorful confetti pattern of his party cup to be the most fascinating thing he’s seen.

“Dr. Rhodes, what was your 21st birthday like?” Jamie prompts, all smiles from being surrounded by people that cared for him for so many years. 

There’s no way Connor can deny the kid an answer, not when he’s extended the same kindness that the doctors have always shown him. Yet he can’t lie, for the exact same reason. 

“I don’t remember my 21st birthday,” he admits, struggling to contort his mouth into a believable grin. He brings the party cup to his lips after a few seconds and takes a sip of punch, silently hoping that Jamie and his coworkers will come to the intended conclusion. 

Connor gets his answer moments later, as heads nod knowingly and Will mutters something like, “Shocker,” around a bite of cake. It’s a brief interlude, though, and the attention turns to April for her story.

If everyone thinks he got blackout drunk the day he came of legal drinking age, then so be it. It’s a logical assumption based on Connor’s phrasing, and having others draw conclusions makes for an easier explanation than the real truth behind the statement.

Connor has no memory of his 21st birthday—that’s not a lie. The information omitted, though, is that the same can be said of his 20th, his 19th, his 18th, and so on. The first birthday Connor can actually recall is his 29th, just a few years prior (he had just started his work in Riyadh, and shared a flask of whiskey with another doctor working in the area). Anything—birthday-related or otherwise—that came before is blank, simply nonexistent. 

The gaping holes in his memory worry Connor and make him curious, sure, but trying to recall party themes or if he even _had_ birthday parties is simply not worth the excruciating headache. It’s far less painful and more productive to focus on making the most of the present than dwell on the past, after all. 

So he turns back to his laughing coworkers, determined to make today a birthday worth remembering for Jamie.


	3. Q & A

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one ended up taking a different turn than I intended (there was supposed to be emphasis on a different detail, which is still included), but I like where it ended up going.

Connor is beginning to suspect that Natalie asked for his help in handling seven-year-old Rosie because of the child’s seemingly endless arsenal of questions. Despite her broken arm from a tumble out of a tree house, Rosie is surprisingly chipper. A child who is completely carefree is a difficult find in the Gaffney ER, so Connor can see how the eagerness could be endearing at first. But then the childish inquisition begins, and the cuteness begins to fade.

It’s a bit distracting from his work, but Connor cuts the girl some slack—she’s young and naturally curious, even if her streams of questions are more like interrogations. In the time that Connor has been working with her (right after Natalie had left them to attend to another, unspecified matter—Connor was now 98% sure that he hadn’t imagined her mischievous smirk when she passed him at the door), Rosie has asked for his favorite color, animal, number, and sandwich, leaving barely a breath in between.

While he’s played along and given truthful answers, both Connor and Rosie can tell that he’s not quite as warm and soothing in personality as “nice Dr. Natalie.” It’s frustrating, because there’s a part of Connor that knows he can be genuinely kind and comforting to children, but for some reason he remains emotionally detached. Maybe his near-daily experiences with others’ trauma have hardened him, or whatever happened to him before stole his caring heart as well as his memories. He can feel a missing space, raw as if the love had been stripped away without his consent, but it’s not a gaping hole that he can’t work around.

Rosie gives her answer for favorite hero figure—Star City’s Black Canary (she and the other vigilantes, like the Hood or whatever the green guy is called now, admittedly catch Connor’s interest, but he’s not familiar enough with their work to name a favorite)—and then goes silent. It’s the longest time she’s been quiet the entire time Connor has spent with her, even if it lasts less than a minute. The questions resume.

“Why’d you want to be a doctor?”

Had the question been posed for anyone else—Natalie, Will, Dr. Charles, even Sarah—Connor was sure their answers would come to them freely and easily. Connor, on the other hand, doesn’t have a specific moment to recall; he’s wanted to be a doctor as far as he can remember. It’s another vague truth, given the memory gaps, and it’s the best answer he has to Rosie’s question.

What _actually_ comes out of his mouth is completely different, yet somehow it feels even more genuine.

“My mom used to run a free clinic in an underprivileged part of the city so those who couldn’t pay to go to the doctor could still be treated,” he explains, taking a seat in the visitors’ chair. “I guess I wanted to help people like she did.”

There’s a moment’s pause after the unexpected answer, but Rosie’s mouth soon breaks into a gapped-tooth grin. “You’re like Black Canary an’ Green Arrow an’ the Flash! You _save_ people!”

The smile is contagious, Connor learns as the corners of his lips quirk upwards. “That’s a pretty super group of people to be compared to. I’m not sure I’m at their level.”

“Are too!” Rosie vehemently insists, carefully crossing her arms to avoid jostling the injured one. “You’re a hero! You even have the costume!” She gestures to the red scrubs.

The passionate defense makes Connor laugh—with all those questions and argumentation, Rosie would make a formidable lawyer when she grows up—but at the same time he’s touched. “Heroic” was never an adjective he had used to describe himself, but clearly a little girl saw something in him that was worth of the title.

There’s a tap on the glass, and both Connor and Rosie look up to find Natalie smiling in the doorway.

“Sounds like you two were having fun,” she remarks.

Connor shrugs nonchalantly, a playful smirk on his face. “Your patient here thinks I have what it takes to fight alongside the big shots. Can I trust you to cover my shifts after I take off for Star City?”

Natalie laughs. “I’ll make sure they’re taken care of.”

The two doctors switch places, and Rosie eagerly waves goodbye to Connor with her good arm. He has just enough time to return it before a stretcher and paramedics come bursting through the ER doors, carrying a new patient.

Later on, when Maggie tells the rest of the team what she overheard him say as he ran past the nurses’ station, Connor will deny it, but in that moment, they were exactly the words he needed:

“Time to be a hero.”


	4. Recollection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is one of the selections I struggled with, considering its importance to the narrative. I think I managed to make it work, though. Further explanation in the notes at the bottom.

“Dr. Connor Rhodes. UAG alum. Chicago-born and bred on Lakeshore Drive.”

It’s a mantra that Connor has learned to instinctively repeat whenever the realization that _he doesn’t remember much of his life_ hits full-force. Such panics are infrequent, perhaps surprisingly so, but the occasional glimpses of what Connor assumes is _Before_ make him wonder if there is much worth remembering.

He’s certainly not interested in reliving the cold bite of thrashing waters, or the soul-shattering scream that rang out as soon as his lungs were safe from drowning. Nor does he want to tap into the ferocity that still echoes in his veins, a volatile force without any clear origin.

Connor does wonder about the woman with the golden hair who comes to him after the water has dried from his skin, but wishes he could see something other than the flash of sadness in her eyes as her lips say her name: _Ta-er al-Sahfer_. 

(She never shows up in his memories again.)

The blood is easier to handle—he’s a doctor, after all—and as long as Connor doesn’t question the specifics of the remembered injuries and how they came to be, his medical training is one of the safer topics to explore.

But then there’s the voice, accented and dangerous, coming straight from _the Demon’s_ lips. It labels Connor as _Son of Al-Sahir_ —a familial relation that makes Connor’s blood freeze and subsequently boil without explanation—and promises that he will be instrumental as a brewing conflict comes to a head.

Neither the role nor the conflict is specified in the scraps of memory, and Connor doubts that he’d find an answer even with his memories intact. 

The worst flashes, the ones that Connor wishes his mind had left untouched, are nothing more than slashes of pain and a mixture of scents hanging heavy in the air. The only thing that guides him out is the familiar mantra, reminding him of the only details that matter:

“Dr. Connor Rhodes. UAG alum. Chicago-born and bred on Lakeshore Drive.”

(What Connor doesn’t notice is how the comforting phrase parallels the words of the Demon that ring through the fog.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Confession time: outside of the recent Flarrow crossover, I haven't really watched Arrow since late last season (about four episodes before the end), so my familiarity with all the Lazarus Pit stuff and the Al-Sahim situation isn't terribly strong. I have read recaps, so I have a gist of how things happened, but still. I'm also taking a lot of liberties with this, particularly in regards to the identity situation and the medical training (it would likely take 11+ years to reach Connor's position in Chicago Med, which I just couldn't do in the just-over-two-year timeframe between Tommy's death and the premiere of Chicago Med). A lot of this is basically me waving my arms and yelling, "Nanda Parbat Magic!"


	5. Yachts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This entire selection exists only because I wanted to reference the classic Tommy line. You know which one.

Connor’s latest case is a bungee jumping accident. A couple of prep school kids decided to utilize their day off and go jumping, despite the fact that neither or them had sufficient experience. Naturally, they panicked when their cords got tangled with each other as well as with the boys’ limbs, which led to some severe lacerations.

Connor is checking in on his patient when Sarah guides the other budding daredevil into the room. Unlike his friend in the bed, who received the brunt of the injuries, the boy escaped with some minor cuts, and should be free to go after this short visit.

The other boy is pretty out of it, pumped full of painkillers, but grins just as conspiratorially as Connor suspects he would if he were completely sober.

“ ‘Ey, man, that was awesome. We should do it again sometime,” the kid slurs, lifting his limp hand to prompt a high-five.

His friend is (thankfully) more sensible. “I’d like to keep my near-death experiences down to a minimum, thanks. Next time, we’re just going to go out on my dad’s yacht and stay out of danger.”

It’s an innocuous enough proposition, but alarm bells start clanging in Connor’s head.

“No, no, absolutely not!”

The words come out as a frantic shout before his brain can catch up and realize how unnaturally panicked he sounds. The mere thought of yachts makes Connor’s stomach sink and sends a cry of despair echoing through his mind without explanation.

Unfortunately, an explanation is exactly what the two boys (and Sarah, who is still lingering at the door) are anticipating.

Connor fumbles over his tongue as he tries to find _something_ to say. “Well, you’re certainly not fit for sea-faring at the moment, and after today you should have learned that going into something blindly is not the best approach.”

(There’s something about this reprimanding that seems vaguely hypocritical to Connor, though he’s not sure why.)

“Make sure you have boating experience and do a thorough safety check of the craft before you even _think_ of leaving port.” He lets out a breath, struck by his unusually strong feelings about the situation. His last opinion on the matter, which Connor mutters under his breath as he turns his attention to the patient’s file, is much less strongly-worded, but somehow tinged with just as much emotion.

“But honestly, yachts _suck_.”

The medication must temporarily enhance hearing, because the bedridden boy just about adds a busted rib to his inventory of injuries at that footnote.

“This guy is hilarious!” He crows at his friend, who has evidently missed the mumbled statement. “ _Yachts suck_. Heh.” His eyes roll back on that short laugh and he passes out cold.

Heat rising in his face almost as fast as the pounding in his head, Connor pretends to make a few notes in his file before hastily making his exit. He catches Sarah’s eye on the way out, but she shows nothing beyond slight confusion before she too turns away.

Making his way to the kitchenette for a bottle of water and some aspirin, Connor only hopes that he won’t have to say “I told you so” to the two teens.


	6. Echoes

Connor Rhodes’s life implodes minutes after his patient loses his own.

Timothy Martin’s chances of survival were slim-to-none by the time he was brought into the ER by his sobbing older brother. The two boys had been on their way home from a meal at a nearby diner when a delivery van ran a red light and barreled into the crosswalk. Timothy—though a mere ten years old—had managed to shove his teen brother out of the way, but was struck head-on as a result. 

The trauma team had tried their best, but in the end there wasn’t much else that could be done for the young boy. All that was left, as his worried parents and brother were told, was to keep him comfortable in his last moments.

The passing itself is quiet, but it thrusts the emergency room into chaos.

The older boy—now an only child—screams along with the flatlining monitors and lunges forward as if to snatch his little brother from the clutches of death. Maggie and April tag-team to pry the teen away from the body so Connor and the others can take over.

“No, Timmy, no!” The devastated shrieks ring through the room even as the grieving boy is guided into the hallway. “It should have been me!”

The last cry strikes Connor like a stab to the heart, freezing him in place. The words are agonizingly familiar, and they claw at his mind in search of the right memories.

His face must appear as bloodless as it feels, because Will looks up from the small, broken body and frowns in concern. His lips move, perhaps to ask if everything is all right, but Connor hears nothing beyond the sobs outside. 

“Open your eyes, Timmy,” the teen wails quietly, his energy dissipating though his mourning has just begun. “Open your eyes…”

Those words. How many times has Connor jolted awake in the middle of the night after hearing their call, only to find himself alone? The answer is too many, and yet he had never noticed the speaker’s pained inflections and how they were much too similar to the pleas in the hallway. 

Pressure builds in Connor’s skull as he works to recall the weeping voice that has rung through his mind for as long as he can remember, but he can’t afford to retreat from the pain. There are too many things unremembered that he has left unaddressed, and it’s long past time to change that. 

There’s a hand gripping his shoulder now, giving it a vigorous shake, but Connor barely has the sense to register it, let alone respond. If he forges on through his memory, surely something will be knocked loose…

A guttural scream resonates from the hall, inhuman enough in sound to make even the most experienced members of the Gaffney Chicago med team pause. It’s the voice of a young man—still a boy—who has watched his brother die much too early, and has lost himself along with the deceased.

The sound doesn’t knock something loose in Connor’s memories so much as _shatter_ barriers of which he was unaware. Shards of memories flash through his mind as his awareness returns enough to see the fear on Will’s face across the room and the panic on Sarah’s (even more so than normal).

Dr. Choi’s firm grip on his shoulder is the only thing keeping him upright, Connor realizes, right as his eyes roll back and the familiar cry rings out in his mind, this time in its complete form.

_“Open your eyes, Tommy!”_


	7. Eyes Open

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now for the fallout. A bit angsty at the beginning, but there's a touch of humor later on.

Tommy Merlyn opens his eyes some time later and half-expects to see his best friend’s face hovering above him, features relaxed in relief.

Instead, he gets Will Halstead leaning against the opposite wall of the tiny recovery room, sipping from a mug of coffee.

Granted, there were worse people to see when waking up in a hospital, but given his still tense relationship with the aforementioned doctor and the events that had just transpired, this was going to be awkward.

With a sigh, Tommy shifts into a seated position on the cot and rubs a hand across his forehead. “How long was I out?”

(The question was now more complex than it needed to be, with two possible answers: Tommy Merlyn had drifted from awareness over two years ago, while Connor Rhodes had been unconscious for significantly less time.)

“Only about 15 minutes,” Will responds. “What happened back there anyway?”

Tommy musters up enough energy to let out a coarse laugh. “Still trying to figure that out myself.”

As far as he can tell, realizing that today’s mourning cries were near identical to the ones that resounded—in Oliver Queen’s voice, no less—through his thoughts for years caused something to crack within the recesses of Connor Rhodes’s mind, and the long-suppressed parts of Tommy Merlyn came flooding forth.

Tommy remembers everything now—the rebar, the conversation with his best friend (the hero), the “Thank you” spoken with his last breath. He remembers the frothing well (Lazarus Pit, as he was later told) that both restored him to life and sealed away all that he was before.

There’s the medical training, and Tommy can’t help but laugh at the irony of learning surgical methods from the League of Assassins. The title insinuates that they’re supposed to _take_ lives, not teach an amnesiac former party-boy to _save_ them.

That detail, as well as the Demon’s ( _Ra’s al Ghul_ , as he had introduced himself) promise, slowly starts to piece together in Tommy’s mind. Ra’s had intended to use him as leverage against his father—clear from his designation as “Son of Al-Sahir”—and had hidden him away with a new identity until Tommy could be of use.

He’d been used as a pawn, Tommy realizes, his fists clenching.

Some part of this grand plan must have gone wrong, because Tommy has yet to be accosted by cloaked assassins whenever he passes through a shadow, and Ra’s surely wouldn’t leave his precious bargaining chip unattended for too long. This realization, along with his return to himself, tells Tommy exactly what he needs to do next:

“I need to get back to Starling City.”

Will, who Tommy has honestly forgotten is in the room with him, makes a face at the unexpected outburst. “You mean Star City? The city that has been the target of major attacks for the last three springs?”

“That’s the one,” Tommy replies a bit too cheerily, feeling a familiar grin begin to break across his face as he finally starts to feel like _Tommy Merlyn_ again.

Will just looks at him like he’s just confessed to being the Green Arrow. (Tommy was going to have to talk with Oliver about that too.) “You can’t be serious.”

“Serious as rebar through the chest. Let me tell you, not something I’d recommend.” Maybe it’s a bit morbid to joke about his own death, but Tommy is too caught up in the moment to care.

He brushes past Will—still gaping at him and his complete change in attitude—and heads back into the heart of the ER. There are a number of issues that Tommy needs to address (such as his employment—it’s doubtful that the League of Assassins would be recognized as an approved provider of medical training), but he’ll have to handle them all one at a time.

First up is booking a flight back home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There were some other scenes I wanted to include (such as moments from other Chicago Med characters' POVs), but time constraints and the emotional drain from getting through these selections--however short they ended up being--led me to cut them out. Maybe I'll play with this 'verse some more and potentially rework this piece at a later date, but no guarantees yet.

**Author's Note:**

> Things are going to be explained and fall in place soon.


End file.
